On web design and my blog

Once in a while I stop and think about the reasons for changing the design of my blog.

My first reaction to such self query usually results in insults to myself. It has been some time since I noticed the design of any other site. This is mainly caused by me using RSS aggregator to read most of the websites on my daily menu. And with RSS the design of the actual site does not mean much anymore. All of them appear the same and exactly I want them to.

But I wouldn’t have had a blog if I’d only insult myself. Thus I continue.

I am updating and improving the design for a few reasons actually.

• There are still a whole lot of visitors here who don’t use RSS at all or use it to get the notifications when I post new items. They all come to the site with their browsers.
• First timers. Almost half of all the visitors on this site are coming here for the first time and will not return.
• Historical reasons. There are some services, like archive.org which store the pages as they are. It is interesting to compare different stages of my blog evolution after some time.
• Themes and perfectionism. I always wanted a professional website. I couldn’t make it myself because I am simply not a webdesigner. And I didn’t want to pay for it. Yet. Modern CMSs allow me to use themes developed by other people, who know what they are doing.
• Boost of activity. Every time I play around with the maintenance part of my blog, I tend to use it more afterwards. I start posting more often and my posts get longer. I generally consider this to be a good thing.

Resume: as much as RSS is important in my daily surfing and in the lives of other people, there are still reasosn to pay attention to the look and feel of the website itself.